China Grants Parole to Democracy Activist – AP

A Chinese democracy activist has been paroled after more than six years in prison for helping form a political party seeking to challenge the communists’ monopoly on power, a fellow activist said Friday.

A co-founder of the China Democracy Party, Zhu Zhengming, was freed this week, nearly four years before his 10-year sentence was due to expire, said Cheng Fan, who had also been briefly detained for his part in the attempts to register the party.

Cheng said it wasn’t clear why Zhu had been released early, although he said Zhu was told he would have to report to police regularly and apply for permission to travel, Cheng said.

Zhu, a chemist believed to be 43 or 44, could not immediately be reached for comment, and calls to his mother’s home in the eastern city of Wenzhou rang unanswered.